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‘No Government policy could have stopped me eating’
Kate, who once weighed 133 kilograms, has had a long history of putting on weight and then dieting to lose it again. But she was never happy.
“It was the depression that finally got me,” says the member of Overeaters Anonymous (OA). “I was diagnosed with depression as I had serious suicidal tendencies.” The combination of not being able to stop eating and her worsening psychological health is what prompted her to join OA. She needed more then medical treatment.
“Our health system is set up around treating the medical symptoms and not on prevention and mental problems. I declined surgery and still lost 10 stone at one point but I was not happy,” she says.
The government, she believes, is trying to help people with eating problems but all the policies are of no use if they don’t help with emotional support. “No government policy could stop me eating. They need to do something much more effective than taxing Häagen-Dazs ice creams,” she says.
When I asked her how her life had changed, she said that there was no comparison. “I was a complete shut in. I wouldn’t go out. Not because I thought people would discriminate against me or that society wronged me but because I was so full of self hatred and disgust. Others couldn’t possibly think any worse of me than I already did.”
Slowly and mostly due to Overeaters Anonymous, Kate says she lost weight and gained control of herself (you could substitute this by ‘and is now “ahead of the problem.”. She got back her confidence and her love for life and is now “ahead of the problem.”
She is now a size 14 and happy.
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